Use place=town to identify an important urban centre that is larger than a place=village, smaller than a place=city, and not a place=suburb. Towns normally have a good range of shops and facilities which are used by people from nearby villages.

How to Map

Place a node at the center of the town, like the central square, a central administrative or religious building or a central road junction and tag it place=town.

Mapping towns as areas

The most common method of mapping towns is with a node placed at the center. Some mappers however map towns with an area instead of using a node. Towns often do not have a verifiable outline though and different interpretations of the meaning of areas representing populated places exist - more details can be found on the place key page. This method also looses the information on the town center which is important for data users, in particular for routing. Data users should not expect the area geometries of towns to have a particular meaning.